Have you noticed that there is a certain degree of numbness required to live life?
My nerve endings feel raw as I try to take on all of the world’s pain - war, famine, injustice to women, natural disasters . . . need I go on?
Numbing starts at an early age.
Every summer my daughters spend weeks with their grandparents in rural Pennsylvania. At the end of summer Eva exclaimed, “I am so glad to be back in San Francisco!”
“Why?” I asked, eagerly anticipating her answer.
“Because there’s no road kill in the city!”
Each unfortunate groundhog we passed tugged at her heart. Yet coming home, she passes the homeless daily without taking pause.
Numbness happens when something wrong, bad, or sad is experienced repeatedly and when we think there’s nothing we can do about it. It becomes “normal”.
As we approach the ten year mark of September 11th, I am aware of my own numbness, our society’s ambivalence towards what feels like an impossible solution, and our world’s sense of what is normal.
I invite you this weekend to feel. With your heart, with your emotions, with abandon. Give space for others to feel fully too. Emotions are important to hold, breathe through, accept, and maybe let pass. . . maybe act on... maybe talk about . . . maybe write about . . . maybe pray about. . . but for sure, feel.
My nerve endings feel raw as I try to take on all of the world’s pain - war, famine, injustice to women, natural disasters . . . need I go on?
Numbing starts at an early age.
Every summer my daughters spend weeks with their grandparents in rural Pennsylvania. At the end of summer Eva exclaimed, “I am so glad to be back in San Francisco!”
“Why?” I asked, eagerly anticipating her answer.
“Because there’s no road kill in the city!”
Each unfortunate groundhog we passed tugged at her heart. Yet coming home, she passes the homeless daily without taking pause.
Numbness happens when something wrong, bad, or sad is experienced repeatedly and when we think there’s nothing we can do about it. It becomes “normal”.
As we approach the ten year mark of September 11th, I am aware of my own numbness, our society’s ambivalence towards what feels like an impossible solution, and our world’s sense of what is normal.
I invite you this weekend to feel. With your heart, with your emotions, with abandon. Give space for others to feel fully too. Emotions are important to hold, breathe through, accept, and maybe let pass. . . maybe act on... maybe talk about . . . maybe write about . . . maybe pray about. . . but for sure, feel.
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